Week 7, Adulthood

This week coincides with an important milestone in my life, turning 25.What a perfect week to read about the emergence of adulthood. I've been joking that I'm having a "quarter-life crisis", as I'm acutely aware of the fact that, at 25, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm much better able to take care of myself, yes, but I still don't "feel" like an adult, and I'm not sure if you ever really do. The ideas this week about adulthood in our country not being marked by one "rite of passage" and instead occurring at different ages depending on many factors, rings especially true. Reading about the changes that occur in thinking styles in adulthood, I feel like I am exactly where I need to be. It is interesting to be able to see your own development in this manner. I definitely use much more emotion within logic than I ever did, and the text really made me see how I had made this shift, without even realizing it. I see now why this class is required for so many of our programs. It has an incredible amount of information to help you understand both other people, as well as yourself.

Week 6, The Adolescent

Mark Twain once said:
 "The two most important days of your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out WHY".

One of the things that stuck with me this week was the ways in which an adolescent comes to identify what possible careers they are interested in, and begins to move toward those goals. I know that in my own experience, at least, that this process begins early and continually gets reformed as the adolescent both figures out their own skills and explores possible career paths. I know that my own path towards becoming a nurse began with first wanting to be an astronaut (at age 5), a veterinarian (at age 10), a teacher (at age 15), a mental health counselor (at age 20), and now a nurse, as I'm turning 25 this week. Sometimes I still feel stuck somewhere between specification and implementation, trying to best prepare myself for a career that will be both fitting to my personality and skills, as well as emotionally fulfilling to sustain me to retirement. This journey to find what I'm supposed to do feels like it has encompassed my entire life, and I know for certain that I wouldn't be seeking this career that I am so excited for, without those other steps along the way. Although the text discusses these topics within the framework of the adolescent mind, I feel that this career discovery journey continues well into adulthood, if not all of adulthood, as so many return to school later in life to pursue different career aspirations. I think of myself at age 18, and I know that there was no way that I knew myself well enough to say what it is that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Just my ramblings, but a perfect topic to highlight some important things in my life right now.

Week 5 already!

Reading about the different styles of parenting was really helpful to me. Both in seeing how my own parents raised me (mostly authoritative, sometimes permissive), and in thinking about people and families that I know. I'm sure we all know the family whose parents seem to get walked on, and the children scream and cry until they get what they want. These parenting styles really affect not only how your own  child grows and develops, it also affects the family dynamic, and eventually to your children's children as they pass on the parenting style they grew up with and is what they know. The message for me is: what we do affects other people, and creates a ripple effect. If this class is all about the connections between us, I am really blown away by how intricate and dynamic those connections truly are. As a side note, I am also delighted to find out that being an only child does not set me up for failure in life, as some would have you believe! Until next week.

Week 4

This week's text has me reflecting on what is important in a school aged child's life, and what will set them up for success versus failure within the academic system. I'm so incredibly lucky to have been brought up in a family that values education. My mom made time every night for reading, and was often teaching me accelerated math and reading/writing at home. She really set that example for me. As a result, I found it exciting to learn and to prove myself academically, and that extends to this very day. . It's especially poignant for me to look back now that my mom is gone, at the gift of education that she instilled in me. Would I be going to school now, with the intent of becoming a nurse, if she had not? We know that genes are only half of the equation, and that intelligence is really created and expressed within a supportive and fostering home environment. I have friends that, while intelligent, were not brought up in an environment where going to college was important, much less expected like it was for me. I've just taken time to reflect this week, how lucky I've been. I wish that every kid had those chances. How different would the world be?